1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to a facsimile machine, and, in particular, to a facsimile machine using a cut sheet of paper as a recording medium.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Typically, in a facsimile communication system, in order to allow an operator at a receiver side to recognize the identity of a transmitter and the date and time of transmission, these information, including other additional information, such as page number, is added when transmitting data from the transmitter side to the receiver side. In many cases, such additional information is added in front of image information to be transmitted, so that it is normally recorded at the top of a recording medium. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 7, when information transmitted from the transmitter is recorded on a recording medium at the receiver side, an image RP at the receiver side is longer than the original image TP by the length L1 of additional information AP. In many prior art facsimile machines, use is made of a continuous recording medium in the form of a roll, so that no particular problems arises even if the recored image RP at the receiver side becomes longer than the original image TP transmitted from the transmitter side because the recording medium is cut appropriately after recording.
In such facsimile machines using a continuous recording medium in the form of a roll, in order to absorb errors in positioning of the recording medium and in the cutting position of the recording medium, a pair of top and bottom margins WT1 and WT2 having the length of L2 and L3, respectively, is provided at the leading and trailing edges of the recorded image RP at the receiver, as illustrated in FIG. 8, so that the recorded image RP at the receiver side is set to have the length LL2 which is longer than the length LL1 of the original image by a sum of the lengths L2 and L3 of the respective top and bottom margins WT1 and WT2. If the additional information is added to this recorded image RP, then the total length of such recorded image RP becomes longer by the length L1 of the additional information, as described above.
Recently, a facsimile machine using a cut sheet of paper as a recording medium has been introduced. In this facsimile machine, since the length of a recording medium is fixed, if the recorded image RP becomes longer than the original image TP due to the addition of the additional information AP and/or top and bottom margins WT1, WT2, there is a chance that the original image is lost partly when recored at the receiver side. In order to cope with this situation, it has been proposed to record the excessive portion of the original image on the second cut sheet of paper. However, such a scheme is not advantageous at all times because if the excessive portion of the original image includes only a few lines or only the the bottom margin WT2, a complete cut sheet of paper is expended only such scarce image information or no image information portion.